John Greening

Strauss

conducts Don Quixote
at the Queen’s Hall,
November 1936:
the acetates hiss and clank
like old cattle trucks
over their clickety rails
as the engine pulls them on
to the lyrical uplands —
“Never look encouragingly
at the brass,” he says,
and the wind-machine blows
the steam away into the dark
foggy London air
that he so hates, dreaming
of Garmisch, and the top
brass filing into the front
row seats for the premiere
of his last opera,
and not of the bomb
that will drop on the
Queen’s Hall soon.